We’ve got them on the list: contacting,canvassing and voting in a British general election campaign

Many voters are canvassed by British political parties in the months and weeks immediately preceding a general election – but many are not. The parties are selective in whom they make contact with, and where. They focus on those in marginal constituencies who are likely to vote for them – and having identified them early in the process they contact them again, seeking to sustain that support in the seats where the contest overall will be either won or lost. A large panel survey conducted immediately before and after the 2010 general election allows detailed insight into that pattern of canvassing, identifying who the parties contacted, and where, in the six months prior to the election being called, and then who were contacted during the month immediately preceding polling day, and in how many different ways. Each party focused on its own supporters in the marginal constituencies, and in the middle-class neighbourhoods within those constituencies, but whereas the Conservatives, expecting to win the election, campaigned most intensively in the seats they lost by relatively small margins at the previous contest, Labour and the Liberal Democrats fought defensive campaigns in the seats that they won then. Such tactics were successful; the more ways in which respondents were contacted by a party, the more likely they were to vote for it.     

Finding the Right Support: One Size Doesn't Fit All

Support for families in the context of separation and divorce has evolved significantly over the last 30 years in the UK. There is growing acceptance that “one size doesn't fit all”—families need different support at different times, and often a combination of services. Relationships Scotland, a network of 21 Member Services, is able to customize and integrate support to meet the needs of each particular family at any stage of relationship difficulty. This article describes the impact of tailored support for one family, as an example of the potential benefit of community‐based, integrated, and flexible support provision.     

Testing the Reciprocal Effects of Campaign Participation

Questions persist regarding the robustness of cross-sectional estimates of effects of variables that are themselves endogenous to the participation process. On one hand, the consequences of working on a campaign have interesting implications for democratic society. Less benign, however, is the possibility that failure to control for reciprocal processes leads to biased estimates of the causes of campaign participation. I use a panel of Democratic and Republican contributors interviewed following each of the past three presidential elections (1996, 2000, and 2004) to explore the relationships between campaign participation and three variables typically parameterized as predictors of participation: receiving a contact, ideological extremism, and strength of party identification. The effect of strength of party identification on campaign participation proves robust; however, I find that nearly all of the associations between contacts and participation and ideological extremism and participation appear to extend from, not into, participation and past participation.

穴位贴敷时间和接触性皮炎对哮喘防治效果的影响

目的 观察贴敷时间和接触性皮炎对哮喘防治效果的影响。方法 将91例穴位贴敷治疗的缓解期哮喘患者,依照4 h、8 h穴位贴敷后是否诱发接触性皮炎,分为A组（4 h有接触性皮炎）24例、B组（4 h无接触性皮炎）25例、C组（8 h有接触性皮炎）22例、D组（8 h无接触性皮炎）20例,观察各组患者治疗前后哮喘发作次数改变、哮喘控制测试（asthma control test,ACT）评分和成人哮喘生活质量问卷（asthma quality of life questionnaire,AQLQ）评分的差异性。结果 与同组治疗前比较,治疗后A、C、D组哮喘发作次数均显著减少,ACT评分、AQLQ评分均显著提高,差异均有统计学意义（P<0.05）;其中A组治疗前后哮喘发作次数差值、ACT评分差值、AQLQ评分差值较B组差异均有统计学意义（P<0.05）。结论 穴位贴敷时间和接触性皮炎均影响哮喘的防治效果,穴位贴敷4 h出现接触性皮炎者疗效相对较好。     

用马克思交往理论解读我国改革开放三十年

生产力是人类社会发展的最终决定力量，而生产力的发展进步是以人与人之间的交往为前提的。一定的生产力状况要求与之相匹配的“交往”，生产力的发展促进交往的不断进步，交往的拓展又促进生产力的发展。交往是社会生产的前提，不仅确保了生产力的纵向传承，更促进了生产力的横向传播。生产力的发展则为交往的发展进步提供必要的物质保障和持续前进的客观动力。改革的对象是既有的不合理制度，为交往的发展和深化创造可能；交往的发展则促进了生产力的快速进步甚至飞跃。改革开放的历史从某种意义上说就是交往的发展史。     

Patterned imprint mark due to the folded shoulder stock: A possible finding in contact shots from submachine guns

The muzzle imprint (barrel mark) is a pressure abrasion typically associated with contact shots. Apart from the contours of the actual muzzle profile, other constructional parts such as the front sight and/or the recoil spring guide of semiautomatic pistols may be imprinted next to the bullet entrance wound. In some types of submachine guns the shoulder stock can be folded forward so that its end partly encircles the muzzle. If such a weapon was in contact with the skin at the instant of discharge, a corresponding contusion mark is to be expected. The imprint configuration may point to the type of weapon and to the way in which the gun had been held when firing the shot. The paper presents the injury pattern in a 36-year-old man who committed suicide with a Scorpion SA Vz 61 submachine gun cal. 7.65 mm Browning from former Czechoslovakia.     

Constructing Victims and Villains: Unintended Outcomes of Contact Prohibition Orders

Contact prohibition orders (besöksförbud) are by now an institutionalized form of preventing violence and protecting the integrity of individuals from non‐strangers' intrusion in their lives. On the basis of an analysis of, primarily, in‐depth interviews with people intended to be protected by such orders, it is argued that this legal practice has unintended consequences for the parties' interaction and relationship. In order to obtain and maintain CPOs, the individuals have to regard and present the other party's acts as criminal cases and watch their own behaviour to preclude accusations of having provoked violations. They are also expected to evidence the other's crimes. In court they have to present themselves as credible witnesses and at the same time as suffering victims in order to retain the victim role. To make sense of the new situation, they tended to re‐construct the other party as inherently criminal, and they accounted for their common past as based upon the other's deception. Hence, it is claimed that the encounters with the criminal justice system have a decisive impact on the individuals' understanding of themselves, the other party, their relations and interaction.     

Can mRNA markers distinguish traces generated by different types of contact?

The presence of contact traces on objects can be caused by different activities such as personal use, firm gripping or casual touching. As these activities are of distinct duration and intensity, we hypothesised that cell material corresponding to different epidermal depth may be deposited. Epidermal layers have distinguishable biomarker profiles [1], [2] that are formed by cell proliferation, cell differentiation and cell death. Thus, we examined whether mRNAs corresponding to different epidermal layers can distinguish the different types of contact. From an initial set of 14 candidates, six epidermal markers showed sufficient expression in contact traces to be included in an mRNA multiplex assay that carried body fluid markers as well [3]. Using a set of 30 user and 30 grip traces left by identical donors on identical substrates, we determined that none of these epidermal mRNAs could specify contact type. When the corresponding DNA data were included in the analyses no relation with contact type could be established either.